Horrowav.—Studies in the New Zealand Hymenophyllaceae. 605 
them to situations where they can root in the soil and where this is 
continuously damp. 
H. pulcherrimum is a tufted species which in Westland occurs altogether 
as an epiphyte. Its fronds are large, with a much greater total extent of 
lamina than in the two last-named species. Moreover, the frond-form is 
not fixed, as in the two others, but is readily modified into a pendulous, 
much-elongated form. Pendulous fronds are frequently bathed in rain- 
water which has splashed from the leaves of the trees or has run down over 
the surface of the bark and through the mass of moss and humus in which 
the plant is growing, so that this species is not so dependent upon root 
absorption as the two above mentioned. Its root-system is, however, well 
developed, and it is confined to forks of trees and other epiphytic places 
where there is a considerable accumulation of humus. It has been indi- 
cated above in the paragraph dealing with Otira that this species probably, 
after all, demands a constant root supply of water rather than a constantly 
high atmospheric humidity, although, of course, it will attain its most 
marked luxuriance if the latter factor be also present. It would appear 
that H. pulcherrimum cannot occur on the flat floor of the forest as does 
T. strictum, for it has departed from the typically erect terrestrial habit ; 
nor can it descend to the lowlands, for there the branches of the trees do 
not, as a rule, carry much moss and humus, and are liable to occasional 
drying 
loped. Among the Hymenophyllaceae the typical epiphytic species show 
special frond-modifications in accordance with this station in the way o 
the extension of the lamina, and especially in the departure from the erect 
lacking in H. demissum and H. bivalve, even when the become low 
epiphytes, as the latter frequently does, and the former occasionally. It 
epiphytic habit. H. australe is a good example of the transition from 
the terrestrial to the epiphytic station, occurring in Westland always at the 
